and excitement. The travellers covered themselves with their cloaks as
well as they could, to protect themselves from the cold, and decided to
follow Vaillant. They soon came to the steep slope of a mountain, and
saw before them a dark, narrow path, running between two very high
cliffs.
"I recognize this spot now," said the baron; "we took this path nearly
two months ago, and visited an old hut occupied by an aged shepherd."
"Come," said Alfred, "it is useless to follow a course that will take us
still farther from our destination."
The travellers were about to retrace their steps when, on looking about
for Vaillant, they saw him running toward the path at incredible speed.
They called him, but he did not heed the voice of his masters, and
entered alone the narrow road between the cliffs. The ardor with which
the dog ran in that direction impressed the travellers; they went on as
far as the entrance to the path, but the prolonged barking of Vaillant,
a loud, savage barking, announced that he had made some important
discovery.
The baron and the young men walked rapidly along the narrow way and saw
the dog in front of the hovel. Vaillant’s eyes were gleaming; he threw
himself against the door, scratched at it with his claws, and his
barking redoubled in force and fury.
"What does this mean?" cried Edouard; "does not Vaillant’s frenzy
indicate that that house contains his assassin? Look! look! he will not
leave that door; he looks at us to urge us to second his efforts."
"But we examined this house once," said the baron.
"No matter; it cannot be without some reason that that faithful servant
insists on entering that wretched place. O my God! suppose we should
find Isaure in this hole!"
"Open! open!" cried Alfred, pounding on the door. But nobody replied;
there was no sound to be heard within. Notwithstanding, Vaillant’s anger
seemed to wax greater with every moment; his prolonged barking echoed
loudly among the cliffs, and the three travellers determined to enter
the old hut, peaceably or by force.
After the dog began to bark, a ghastly scene took place inside the
second hovel. The vagabond was alone with the girl; the old shepherd had
gone to the nearest village to obtain provisions. At the dog’s first
howl, Isaure’s companion ran to the door and looked out; he recognized
Vaillant; instantly a cold perspiration came out on his forehead; he
felt that he was lost, that Isaure’s retreat would be discovered,
because no human power could force the dog to leave that house until he
had found his assailant. Soon the baron’s voice and the shouts of the
young men fully convinced him that he could no longer keep the girl
concealed from them, for Vaillant would surely show them the secret
entrance to Isaure’s hiding-place. It was impossible for him to fly
with his prisoner; he could not leave the excavation and reach the top
of the cliff. In an instant the vagabond realized his position, and
thereupon he formed a ghastly resolution. He returned to the inner
house, carefully secured the passage of communication and joined the
girl, who was listening in the most intense excitement to the barking of
the dog, saying in an undertone:
"O mon Dieu! I should think that it was Vaillant! Can it be that heaven
has sent me a preserver? Is my faithful companion not dead?"
"Yes! it is he, in truth," said the vagabond in threatening tones,
glaring at the girl with a terrifying expression; "but instead of saving
you, that dog will be the cause of your destruction!"
"Great heaven! what do you mean? why do you look at me like that?" said
Isaure with a shudder.
The vagabond took his sword and walked toward the girl, seized one of
her hands, which she raised tremblingly in appeal to him, and said to
her:
"You must die!"
"Die!" cried the girl, turning with an imploring glance to him who was
threatening her life. "O mon Dieu! you intend to kill me! What have I
done? how have I deserved death? have I not obeyed you without a murmur
ever since I have been with you?"
"Yes, yes! you do not deserve such a horrible fate, I know; far from
hating you, I had for you a feeling--I do not know how to describe
it--but my hatred for the baron is stronger than every other sentiment!
I have sworn that you should not fall into his hands again alive. I will
keep my oath.--Do you hear them? They are besieging this place; soon
they will break down the door, which is not strong; that miserable dog
will show them the way to this last hiding-place. They mean to save
you, to take you away from here! They shall not find you alive! Isaure,
you must die before they find their way here!"
Beside herself, desperate, Isaure tried once more to move her assassin;
she threw herself at his feet; but in his frenzy, he was no longer
himself; in his right hand he held the sword; with the other he bared
the girl’s breast, the more surely to pierce her heart. Isaure
struggled; she tried to escape; and he, detaining her by main strength,
tore aside the garment that covered her breast. The locket which the
girl wore hidden there arrested the sword that was about to take her
life; the portrait caught the eye of the assassin; he uttered a cry of
surprise, of horror.
"Can I believe my eyes?" he exclaimed; "that portrait! that woman! Where
did you get it? Speak! speak!"
"It is my mother’s portrait!" cried Isaure, holding her clasped hands
toward him; "she was most unhappy too, they say; oh! in heaven’s name,
have mercy on her daughter!"
"Your mother! Adèle! Adèle was your mother? What thought is this? Can it
be that you are----"
He did not finish the sentence; his sword fell from his hands; he was
like a man struck by lightning. But soon they heard a loud crash; the
door of the hut had been broken in. While the baron and Edouard entered
the room below, Alfred, assisted by Vaillant, and striking the wall on
all sides with the sword he had brought under his cloak, succeeded in
discovering the entrance to the excavation. He rushed through the
passage and entered the second hut, sword in hand, at the moment that
Isaure, overcome by terror, fell unconscious at the vagabond’s feet.
"Villain!" cried Alfred, "so I was not mistaken: it was you who abducted
her! You shall pay for your infamous conduct with your life!"
"Isaure belongs to me!" replied the vagabond, seizing his sword once
more; "no one has a stronger claim to her than I have!"
But Alfred had already rushed upon him, sword in hand; a terrible combat
took place within a few feet of the unconscious girl. It lasted only a
few seconds; Alfred dealt his blows with startling rapidity; he seemed
endowed with unusual strength and dexterity. His adversary fell at his
feet, mortally wounded, at the moment that the baron and Edouard entered
Isaure’s retreat.
They were about to take the girl away from that horrible place and carry
her out to the path, where the sharp air would probably restore her to
consciousness. But the man whom Alfred had overcome still breathed and
motioned that he wished to speak. They gathered about him; compassion
had succeeded the desire for revenge, and they tried to assist him.
"Spare yourself useless trouble," said the wounded man in a dying voice;
"I feel that I am dying,--let me look once more upon Isaure’s beloved
features. Oh! do not recall her to life until I have ceased to
live.--Alfred, you have avenged your father! I am Savigny--the unhappy
Adèle’s seducer!"
"Savigny!" cried the baron, with a gesture expressive of horror.
"Yes; I see it all now. Isaure is my daughter, my Adèle’s child! And I
barely missed being her murderer! But heaven decreed that that ghastly
crime should not be committed, and I thank heaven for it! The poor child
will execrate my memory!--Promise me that you will never tell her that I
was her father!"
The three men who stood about Savigny had hardly made the promise he
requested, when, after making a last effort to kiss his unconscious
daughter’s hand, the wretched man fell back and closed his eyes forever.
They carried Isaure out to the path and did all that could be done for
her. At last she opened her eyes, glanced about and uttered a cry of joy
when she found that she was in the arms of her friends.
"O my God! thou hast saved me!" she said; but a moment later she cried,
glancing in terror toward the hut: "But he is there! suppose he should
come and still want to kill me!"
"The man who snatched you from our arms no longer lives," said the
baron. "You will see him no more, my dear Isaure; he died fighting with
my son."
"He is dead!" exclaimed Isaure, evidently with a thrill of compassion;
and instantly, falling on her knees, she raised her hands toward heaven,
saying: "O my God! forgive him, as I do, all the injury he has done me!"
Isaure’s friends listened respectfully to her prayer; but the glances
which they exchanged betrayed their emotion at the sight of that girl
unconsciously invoking God’s forgiveness for her father.
Their first thought was to remove Isaure from that horrible spot, where
she had passed nearly three months. The old shepherd returned home just
then; they gave him money and ordered him to bury Savigny at the
entrance to the path, and to see that the unhappy man’s grave was
respected so long as he lived.
Then they set out for the little valley. Vaillant ran and leaped and
gambolled about in front of his mistress, and you may guess how they
caressed and fondled him, seeking to reward him to whom the finding of
Isaure was due. The young girl could not credit her good fortune; she
pressed the baron’s hand and Alfred’s; she looked at Edouard, and in
that look all her love was expressed.
At last they saw the cottage and the White House once more; they took up
their abode in the latter and abandoned themselves to the joy of being
united. There Isaure learned that her protector was no longer opposed to
her union with Edouard, and that she could without fear give herself up
to the pleasure of loving.
After three months of separation and suffering, it is natural to be in a
hurry to be happy; Edouard did not wish to leave the White House except
with the title of Isaure’s husband. So that the marriage was celebrated
in Auvergne, quietly, without festivities, without other guests than
love and friendship.
The young girl was married under the name of Isaure Gervais; she thought
that the last name was her father’s, and all her friends were careful
not to undeceive her. But Edouard found in his bride no less virtues and
lovable qualities than charms and sweetness of character; he considered
that all these were worth fully as much as a long genealogy, and he
said, parodying the line in _Mérope_:
"She who knows how to win love needs no ancestors."
XXXIII
THREE YEARS LATER
About three years had passed since the events we have described; a
short, stout individual, enveloped in an ample redingote _à la
propriétaire_, in the pockets of which his hands were buried, was
crossing Rue Vivienne about three in the afternoon. After glancing at
the new books displayed in the shop of Ambroise Dupont et Cie, and
admiring the fine edition of the poem, _Napoléon en Egypte_, by
Messieurs Barthélemy and Méry, he went skipping along and was about to
enter Passage Colbert, when he came into collision with a lady who was
just coming therefrom.
This lady, whose manners were very free and easy, wore a pretty pink
bonnet; she feared that, by running against her, the gentleman had
disarranged it; she uttered an impatient exclamation and was about to
rebuke him for his carelessness, when, happening to glance at him, she
shouted with laughter, to which he replied by a cry of surprise:
"Why! I cannot be mistaken! it is the fascinating Fifine!"
"Well, well! it is Robineau! Ah! my dear friend, what a swell you have
become in the three years since I saw you!"
"Still the same as ever! still amiable and piquant! What happy chance
brings us together?"
"How does it happen that you dare to speak to me? For heaven’s sake,
take care; you will attract attention! Suppose some of your swell
friends, your princesses, should see you talking with me! Great heaven!
what would they say? Skip away quick, for fear you may compromise
yourself!"
"O Fifine! sarcasms! epigrams! to your old and always affectionate
friend!"
"You see, I haven’t forgotten the way my old and affectionate friend
dropped me when he inherited a fortune!"
"Ah! you judged me very ill, Fifine; on the contrary, it was you who
lost your temper right away and refused to listen to me. You are so
hotheaded! Why, I remember that you left me in the dark! That distressed
me terribly; and if I had not been afraid of being received harshly, I
would have laid my fortune at your feet the next day, for what I said to
you was only said to test your disposition."
"It’s amazing how entirely I believe that!--But let us say no more about
the past! You are well aware that all I ever cared for was to enjoy the
present, without worrying about anything else; the result being, my dear
fellow, that two days after your performance I gave you a successor; for
you’re not the kind of a blade to inspire an incurable passion!"
"Don’t say such things, Fifine. Of course I might have guessed that
another man would have touched your heart in three years."
"Another man! Well! you are generous!--Seven others, my dear
friend--each more agreeable than the last, and blessed with _very
comfortable_ physiques.--I speak English now."
"Fifine, if you knew how you hurt me, you would not make such
confessions--to me, who have always kept you in my heart!"
"Bah! don’t talk such nonsense! But I am very curious to know all you
have been doing these three years. Give me your arm; can you do it
without fear of consequences?"
"Yes, of course I can."
"Well! let us walk up and down the passage a while--I have until four
o’clock--and tell me about it."
Robineau offered Fifine his arm with a sigh which made the milliner
laugh; then he began his narrative.
"After we had our falling-out, I left Paris for the château I had
bought----"
"You bought a château! Where, then?"
"In Auvergne."
"I should have preferred one at Belleville; it’s livelier there,
specially now that they’ve got a pretty theatre like the one at the
Rochechouart Barrier."
"Yes, I discovered myself that I should have done better to buy nothing
more than a pretty country house.--However, I started for Auvergne; I
took Alfred de Marcey and Edouard with me."
"Alfred! he’s the man at whose house monsieur got so drunk one night
that I had to make tea and other preparations for him. God! how kind I
was to that creature!"
"I have never forgotten it, Fifine!"
"No more has the cat!--But go on."
"I had a very fine château. Ah! it was magnificent! towers, galleries,
apartments with Cupids on the ceiling!"
"Great heaven! and did you walk about dressed as Cupid?"
"Let me finish.--Unluckily, my château was not new. I made repairs. Then
I married--in order to banish your memory. I married a marquis’s
daughter, who was mad over me. I thought that I had made a superb
marriage. But I had to marry the whole family: father, uncle and sister;
I had them all in my house. My father-in-law, who was to obtain a
lucrative position for me, obtained nothing at all. My wife turned all
my servants away, and hired others who robbed us. My devilish château
required constant repairs; when I had finished in one part, I had to
begin on another! And Uncle Mignon, who had been appointed
inspector-general of my establishment, amused himself picking up pins
instead of overlooking the workmen. On the other hand, my father-in-law
ruined me with his economical schemes; he induced me to buy flocks of
sheep which he insisted on training to draw the plough, saying that they
would do the ploughing much faster; but the poor beasts died just as
they were beginning to get used to the fatigue. He filled the lofts of
my château with plums, declaring that they would make better sugar than
beets; but when he set about making the experiment the plums were
rotten. He had a canal dug in my park, because he swore that we could
catch gudgeons in it and salt them and sell them for sardines; but the
canal was always dry, and we caught nothing but rats.--While monsieur le
marquis tried these fine experiments, my wife gave dinner-parties and
elaborate fêtes. But I could not enjoy them, because I always had to
play whist with my father-in-law. Finally, my sister-in-law married a
widower with three children, and I had to put them all up at my château.
I attempted to remonstrate, but my wife told me that when a man was as
rich as I was he ought not to be mean. I determined to find out whether
I still was very rich, so I wrote to my notary one fine day, when I had
been married two years. He replied that of all the property of mine that
he had had, only about fifty thousand francs was left. We had spent
about three hundred and fifty thousand in repairs, entertainments and
economical undertakings. I lost no time in informing my father-in-law
that all I had left was twenty-five hundred francs a year and the
château. Thereupon my wife fainted, my father-in-law seized a cane and
threatened to give me a drubbing, claiming that I had deceived him;
that, in order to have the honor of marrying his daughter, I had
represented myself as being much richer than I really was.
"Faith! as I was tired of being scolded and threatened, and of playing
whist, I started for Paris one fine morning, leaving them the château,
which they were obliged to sell as it brought in nothing; but I turned
over the proceeds to them. I am content with my twenty-five hundred
francs a year, and if only my wife and my father-in-law do not come to
Paris some day to hunt me up--that is all I ask.--That is what has
happened to me, my dear Fifine;--My two travelling companions have been
more fortunate: Edouard married a girl who lived in the mountains, near
my château. She does not bear an illustrious name, she does not dance
like Cornélie, but it seems that she makes her husband very happy; they
have a lovely little girl, and they pass six months of the year at the
White House, a pretty place of theirs in Auvergne, where they have urged
me to visit them, which I would gladly do if I was not afraid of meeting
my wife or my father-in-law in the neighborhood. As for Alfred, he too
has married lately--a certain Jenny de Gerville, with whom he had been
in love a long while; his wife is very pleasant; I dine with them
sometimes.--There, dear Fifine, that is what I have been doing these
last three years. And you?"
"I have flitted about."
"Are you still in the same shop?"
"I should think not! I have been in thirty since. But I think that I am
going to settle down at last; the person with whom I am intimate now is
looking for a _fashionable_ little shop for me."
"Fifine!"
"Well?"
"Doesn’t your heart say anything to you? does not this meeting cause you
a delicious emotion, as it does me?"
"Mon Dieu! no! I am not moved at all!"
"Fifine, I still have a neat little income, and I hope to get back into
my old department. As we have met again, what prevents us from renewing
a connection that was once so affectionate, from adoring each other as
we used?"
"No, thanks! I won’t renew anything! You would only have to inherit some
more money, and then you’d drop me again!"
"Ah! Fifine! what a rebuke! You cut me to the heart!"
"I am very sorry, but you don’t cut me at all!"
"Let us at least make the most of the chance that brings us together;
come and dine with me, Fifine."
"No."
"I know a little restaurant where they make excellent rum punches;--you
used to be very fond of rum punch, Fifine."
"I still am, but I won’t dine with you. Oh! it’s of no use for you to
assume your affecting expression! it doesn’t touch me in the least
now.--It’s four o’clock and I must leave you; I am going to join my
little milord, who is waiting for me on Place de la Bourse."
As she spoke, Fifine dropped Robineau’s arm. He heaved a deep sigh and
drew his handkerchief, raising his eyes heavenward in his distress; but
that only made Fifine laugh.
"My dear man," she said as she left him, "a woman forgives infidelity,
but never ingratitude!"
* * * * *
Typographical errors corrected by the etext transcriber:
worthy villager, who know La Roche-Noire=> worthy villager, who knows La
Roche-Noire [pg 124]
alive when they took his out=> alive when they took him out [pg 145]
* * * * *
FOOTNOTES:
[1] _Bas_.--Which means stockings, as well.
[2] A _rosière_ is the name given in many villages to the girl who wins
the prize for virtue.
[3]
How I love this spot! beside these pure waters,
How sweet, in the gloaming, nature to admire!
Born ’neath yon humble roof, he who dwells here
Views with indifferent eye these frowning mountains.
But to a heart susceptible to melancholy,
This romantic spot is full of poesy!
These steep cliffs, these limpid streams,
These winding paths, these swaying reeds,
All these excite me, touch me, and this savage scene
Speaks to my amazed senses an unfamiliar language.
[4]
All rests in the darkness and Idamore alone
From the walls of Benares escapes before dawn.
What is this ancient forest, whither your steps have led me?
But I see a temple, and the luminary of night!
[5]
Where am I? What darkness
Shrouds with a ghastly veil the light that shone for us?
These walls are dyed with blood! I see the Furies
Shake their torches, avengers of parricides!
The vivid lightning seems to strike me down,
Hell yawns!
[6]
I have the blest promise,
That as midnight draws near,
Love will noiselessly open to me
My mistress’s alcove!
[7] _Va te promener!_ Literally, as translated, but as an idiomatic
expression it signifies: Go about your business!
[8] The point made in French is lost in English. The verb
used--sentir--means either to feel or to smell.
[9]
Thy charms all hearts ensnare,
Grace, youth in thee I see;
No joy so sweet, so rare,
As always loving thee.
[10] In French, _il possède dix langues_!--"he possesses ten
tongues,"--which makes the pun more intelligible.